Land of the Dead: Zombies Be Learnin’! 11/02/2010

by Joe

I’m now whittling away at the awesome list of zombie/apocalypse-related media that you guys have given me (and continue to give me!) :D

I watched Land of the Dead the other day after I requested a zombie film that featured intelligent zombies. I got exactly what I wanted with this movie! The zombies could learn, communicate, use tools, and even showed compassion (one zombie put another suffering zombie out of its burning misery). It got me thinking – especially at the end when one human character spares a group of intelligent zombies and says that they are just looking for a place to go – that zombies, once they re-discover their intelligence, are just like us – just trying to survive. At that point, the apocalypse becomes a racial war between two groups of humans.

What I also found interesting was the segregation of humans, even in post-apocalyptic times. The poor and rich were separated by the slums and the posh, highly-exclusive Fiddler’s Green condominium. Naturally, this segregation led to riots, corruption and even the threat of destruction by missile fire, proving that even when the world is infested by the undead, man is still man’s worst enemy.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie :) I love that the human’s war-truck was called “Dead Reckoning”. I’m going to have to use that one day :D

I also caught the fist episode of AMC network’s The Walking Dead. So far, it is a very captivating drama. I am definitely going to follow it this season. I believe this season is only 6 episodes long, so I’ll probably review it when it’s all done :)

I have chatted with a couple of people in the IRC chat! Glad to speak with you in real-time! :D

The book “I Am Legend” (one of the many that started the way we look at zombies today) follows the whole “Inteligent zombie” ideal (despite being after vampires i think) the entire book was roughly about the protagonist realizing that in the zombie’s history books, he would be the legend of the zombie destroyer (think jack the ripper)

Another interesting one that is often overlooked is “The black Smurf” which also started the whole zombie outbreak thingie in pop culture. Interestingly enough, that smurf that’s always angry was the original ‘zombie’ and developed intelligence and painted his face blue so as to wander around unnoticed as he infected others in the village.

Hikorion November 3, 2010 at 3:38 pm

@AJP3 – Yeah! I heard the comics were good. I’ll definitely check them out :)
@Grant – Things are in the works! And I didn’t have to blackmail anyone :D
@Hikori – I thought you were just kidding about The Black Smurf, but it’s totally real! Thanks for letting me know about it. It’s extremely interesting :D